


The Day After The End

by TheMarkOfEyghon



Series: Find Your Own Way Back Home [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Dealing with the aftermath of grief, F/M, Giving Ethan Rayne some actual characterization, M/M, Missing Scene, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-21 12:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21075209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMarkOfEyghon/pseuds/TheMarkOfEyghon
Summary: How can the sun shine so soon after all of that? How can it rise? How can the night end before he’s even been able to grasp that it happened at all?***Ethan begins to grasp the aftermath of death.





	1. Chapter 1

He’s alone when he wakes.  
  
There’s a thumping, throbbing pain in his jaw and nothing but silence settled over him and, as he sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes, he wonders what he’d done the night before to piss Randall off because he can’t remember a time since he’d come bounding into their lives that the boy didn’t make it his mission to put a pillow under the head and a blanket on top of whoever ended up passed out on the floor.  
  
He stretches and his spine cracks back into alignment. He then wonders why the fuck Ripper didn’t just carry him to bed. And how he ended up passed out on the floor at all because it hadn’t been his night to be possessed by Eyghon and he doesn’t remember them all getting soused after -  
  
After -  
  
Ethan hits the floor a second time, every muscle in his body feeling like jello as fear, icy and white and all-consuming like television static swallows him whole. He can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything but lie there as he’s assaulted by the memories, the floodgate is open and it’s dizzying. The possession, the salt-circle somehow breaking, Randall hovering in the air, so terrible and so not the boy that they knew and loved. The exorcism gone wrong, the sound of his body hitting the floor…  
  
Ethan rolls, his entire body jerks upright, but only so that he can heave and vomit up the remnants of whatever he’d eaten last onto the cold floor of the empty warehouse. He lifts his head as soon as he can, wiping his mouth clean with the back of his hand, and stares at the wreckage that was once the space of their refuge. The couch is overturned, there are charred bits of spells littering the floor like confetti. Scorch marks on the floor and wax hardened where Randall had sent the candles flying, spilling over, and encouraged the flames to rise with a power that didn’t belong to him. He sees it all, sees the damage, and he remembers.  
  
Remembers seeing Randall, dead on the floor.  
  
Remembers Ripper, holding him in his arms, trying to shake the life back into him.  
  
Remembers running to phone Ripper’s father, as uncertain and unwilling as he’d been to follow that order from Ripper; as much as he’d just wanted to run like the rest of them had, like he could leave it behind.  
  
But there’s nothing else. He doesn’t remember getting back to their clubhouse. Isn’t wholly certain how he ended up on the floor. He goes to wipe at his mouth again and hisses as he accidentally prods the sore spot of his jaw; a bruise is blooming there, indicating that his beauty nap here hadn’t been a choice of his own.  
  
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

Where are they?  
  
No sign of Ripper… and no sign of Randall, either. His body isn’t on the floor and Ethan has to thank whatever God will hear him for that, because if he’d seen… again… if he’d had to see...  
  
He rises shakily to his feet, still feeling like his insides are more jelly than not. He shakes and sways, wobbling forward on uncertain feet to the door and not quite getting his momentum to stop in time, crashing through it and tripping over himself again, this time hitting soft earth.  
  
It’s bright outside. Impossibly so. There are birds outside and the sun is shining -- and that’s wrong, he thinks, deliriously to himself. It shouldn’t be so beautiful out. It should be dark and grey and pouring. How can the sun shine so soon after all of that? How can it rise? How can the night end before he’s even been able to grasp that it happened at all?  
  
“...Ethan?”  
  
He jerks upward at the sound of his name, called so softly. ‘Ripper,’ His mind thinks, immediately. Who else could it be? Of course he wouldn’t have just left him there. He’s back, now, and he’ll have Randall with him, shaken but a l i v e, and that’ll be everything alright in the world, again, because that’s the only way that life will continue to make sense. The only way that the sun could come out again. And he starts to turn, starts to twist, and stares ahead at the man that’s staring back at him…  
  
But it’s not Ripper.  
  
“Thomas?” Ethan asks, stupidly.  
  
His face is pale and gaunt. He’s still wearing his clothes from last night, doesn’t look like he’s slept at all. His hands are shaking at his sides and he’s not even looking at Ethan. He’s looking past him, at the warehouse.  
  
“Are you…” Thomas starts to say, but his voice fails him. He trails off and it’s a long minute before he tries again. “Are they still in there?”  
  
And just like that, any hope that Ethan had that Thomas had been sent by Ripper to fetch him vanishes.  
  
“No.”  
  
Thomas balks at his answer. “What do you mean, no? Where are they?”  
  
“Ah,” Ethan says, with a shrug of his shoulders. “That… is an excellent question.”  
  
And then he throws up again.

  
  
*

Ethan’s only ever been to Thomas’ place a handful of times that he can really remember, but that’s where they go next because it’s closer than Ethan’s. He lumbers awkwardly through the space to the bathroom and ducks his head under the stream of cold water from the sink for twenty minutes. Trying to clean away the taste of bile coating his tongue or maybe just trying to drown himself. And, although it doesn’t kill him, it does give him a more tangible hold on reality. Clears some of the fog from his brain.  
  
His hair and the entire front of his shirt is soaked by the time that he slips back out into Thomas’ living room. Thomas is there, waiting, most of a bottle of vodka downed. The drink seems to have steadied his hand but it hasn’t removed any of the misery from his face.  
  
The air between them is heavy and uncertain. Ethan keeps his distance, and his gaze keeps flicking toward the door. Waiting for Ripper to come bursting in.  
  
“...Did that really happen?”  
  
Thomas speaks first. Shatters the silence but Ethan can’t quite grasp the question. Maybe because he’s not sure, himself.  
  
“I think so.”  
  
Thomas lifts the bottle back to his mouth. Ethan watches as he takes another gulp and considers asking for some, himself, but the thought turns his stomach.  
  
“I don’t know what happened,” Ethan says, finally. “I don’t -- I remember but it can’t be right. He can’t be… it doesn’t make sense.”  
  
“I know what you mean. I thought… I had to go back just to see if… because I was sitting here and I thought it couldn’t be right. It all happened so fast and I got scared. Philip ran, and then Dee… and it like something was pushing me. Inside. Forcing me to go. And I just did. And I was sorry by the time that I got home. I had to go back and see if…”  
  
If it had happened.  
  
If the salt was scattered and the couch overturned and scorched. If the spells were burned, if Randall’s body was there. Thomas doesn’t say these things out loud, not to Ethan, but Ethan knows that’s what he’s thinking.  
  
“I was alone,” Ethan says, again, this time with less accusation. More hope. Maybe it hadn’t happened like he thought it happened. Maybe they got Randall to come to but he was so badly injured that Ripper had to take him -- maybe Ripper's gone back to the warehouse after and just missed Thomas and Ethan stumbling away.  
  
Maybe the door would burst open any second and Ripper would barrel through. And Ethan? Ethan would kiss him. And everything would be fine, Ripper would tell him that Randall was fine that it was all okay. Just a close call, too close, and they’d all swear off of it.  
  
ETHAN would swear off of it, if that meant that he’d have them both back.  
  
“I -”  
  
The door slams open.  
  
Both of them jump and turn, hope dawning in their expression. But it’s not Ripper there. It’s Deidre, standing uncertainly in the doorway and looking astonished to be seeing them.  
  
No, just to be seeing him.  
  
“Ethan? What are you doing here? I thought -”  
  
She stops. She stares. Ethan wishes that any of them could just finish their fucking sentences. Wishes they had something to say that wasn’t painful and awful.  
  
“...thought you went with Ripper,” She finishes.  
  
All the words are in English, but Ethan doesn’t quite get them. Wonders if this is what the blokes in Babel felt like, staring into the faces of people that they knew and had always known, only for the words that came out of their mouths to stop having any recognizable meaning.  
  
“Went where?” Thomas asks, stealing the line from Ethan before he can even come up with it. “Did you see him?”  
  
“No. I was just over at his… I thought that you’d all be there. But there was nothing. The door was open but everything was gone. All of his stuff, all of Ethan’s, all of Ran - there’s nothing there like no one had been living there. I just thought that Ripper and Ethan had fucked off together. I know Philip has, he rang me this morning to tell me that he bought a train ticket out to country and would be staying with an Aunt for a while. And I…”  
  
Deirdre doesn’t stop talking of her own accord, this time. Her lips are still moving, but Ethan can’t hear her anymore, not over the high, keening whistling in his head. Everything had stopped moving when she said everything was gone.  
  
“No.” Ethan says, out loud. “No. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that to me. He -”  
  
“Ethan?”  
  
He barrels past Deirdre, not even flinching at the sound of his name on her voice, storming down the stairs leading from Thomas’ flat and hitting the ground running.  
  
_((Ripper, what the fuck have you done?))_


	2. Chapter 2

The door to Ethan’s flat is slightly ajar, as it was when Dee left it to flee to Thomas’, but knowing that doesn’t stop his heart from leaping in his chest… doesn’t stop his traitorous mind from hoping beyond hope that it’s been left that way by Ripper. And it doesn’t stop the way his stomach feels, cold and sour, when he pushes through the doorway and comes to a clumsy halt, nearly tripping over himself.  
  
There’s nothing left.  
  
None of the furniture. None of their books. No dishes left piled up high on the counter and begging for just one of them to buckle down and scrub through them. None of Randall’s notes and reminders left scattered on the counter by the last person who read them. It’s all… even Ripper’s record collection, painstakingly looked after and organized, has completely vanished from the shelves. And Ethan’s things, his spell books, his notebooks, his potion ingredients and the few, blurry pictures that he’d managed to keep of his mother that were hidden between pages… all of it gone. Vanished into thin air, just like Ripper. Just like Randall’s body.  
  
The place is cold and empty like no one’s lived there in years -- not at all like the place they’d been the night before, the three of them, tangled up in each other. Laughing and joking and dreaming to fill up the silence and mask the uncertainty. It’s as hollow as he feels now and he takes a few more, staggering steps into the flat before his legs give up completely and he sits on the floor. Staring at nothing.  
  
“...Jesus Christ,” Thomas swears from the doorway. He’d started running when Ethan had, just a few paces behind him, coming to a similar, stuttering halt and having to grab onto the wall to keep himself from tripping over Ethan. “They -- did Ripper do this? Get rid of everything?”  
  
“Dunno,” Ethan says from his new place on the ground. His voice is hoarse and alien to his own ears. “Maybe.”  
  
Would he do that? To him? To them? No. Couldn’t be, he refuses to believe it. If Ripper was going to run, he wouldn’t have touched Ethan’s things. He wouldn’t have touched Randall’s. Would have just taken his own, wouldn’t he? And -- and if Ripper was going to run, he wouldn’t do it without saying so. Even Philip had rung Dee, to tell her, to tell t h e m that he was going. And Ripper wouldn’t…  
  
He couldn’t…  
  
“What happened?” Thomas asks. He reaches out to grab Ethan’s shoulder, either to offer him comfort or to just catch his attention and Ethan flinches away from him. “After we left?”  
  
“I…” Ethan’s voice is still too hoarse. He swallows, hard, against the lump in his throat and nervously licks his lips. “...You all ran. And Ripper was shaking him. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run too, but I couldn’t leave them there. Not by themselves. I couldn’t leave him. I tried to convince him to come with me, but he wasn’t going for it. I told him that there was nothing we could do… asked him what the hell he wanted me to do… and he gave me a number to call. I don’t remember much after that. It’s all a blur.”  
  
“A number?” Thomas repeated, drawing back at Ethan’s flinch. “Whose number?”  
  
“His father, I think.”  
  
Silence fell between them. Both of them had only ever met the man, once… just one time had Ripper’s Da come about, trying to collect his son. And neither of them had talked to the man. Ripper had gone out of the pub with him and come back looking right pissed off and badly shaken. He hadn’t been alright for weeks after, and none of them were brave enough to ask what had happened.  
  
“Why would he have you call his father? That doesn’t make any…”  
  
“I don’t know, Thomas. I don’t really remember anything after seeing Randall dead.” Ethan snapped, harshly. The words burn his throat, like whiskey going in the wrong direction, and Thomas flinches.  
  
Ethan should be sorry. But he’s… not, really. Doesn’t have enough in him to be sorry. Doesn’t have enough in him to be anything but cold and uncomfortable, sitting on this floor.  
  
“Maybe it was his dad who cleared this place out, then.” Thomas says, after the silence stretches too thin. “That’s why he took your stuff, too. Wouldn’t have known what belonged to Ripper and what didn’t.”  
  
“Ripper’ll be annoyed when he gets back, then.” Ethan says, absently. “Especially since his records are gone. He’s going to have a right fit about that.”  
  
“Ethan…”  
  
“When do you suppose he’ll be back?” Ethan asked, like Thomas hadn’t spoken. “If he’s with his dad, right now.”  
  
“...You think he’ll come back?”  
  
Ethan turned his head, sharply. So sharply that something in his neck cracks and burns a bit. So sharply that Thomas reels back on an impulse and raises his hand in a gesture of surrender to anger that Ethan hasn’t even put a voice to yet.  
  
“I was just thinking…” Thomas says, quickly. “Dee said Philip ran off… and I think she’s got half a mind to fuck off, too. He might not be coming back, E. Just need to brace yourself to the possibility that -”  
  
“He wouldn’t do that. Not to me.”  
  
“But, if he has… Ethan, all of his stuff is gone. He might be with it and he might not -”  
  
“He wouldn’t do that to me.” Ethan says again, louder this time. “He wouldn’t. Thomas, no offense… but you don’t fucking know him like I do, mate. None of you do. None of you did. He’s my best mate and he wouldn’t do that to me.”  
  
Not after everything. Not after every kiss and touch they ever shared -- not after all the secrets spilled between them, over lousy drinks at lousier pubs or hidden away here, at their place, with Randall tucked between them. They were their own world, even within the greater universe of the dark magics and revelry they shared with the others. They had something that no one else did.  
  
“He’ll be back.”  
  
Is he trying to convince Thomas or himself? He doesn’t know, anymore. His head hurts, his jaw hurts, and his back hurts. He’s pretty sure he has scrapes and bruises from the night before that shock hasn’t even let him feel… bound to only feel worse as the week goes on. But it’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine when Ripper gets back. Somehow, some way.  
  
“He’ll be back.” Ethan repeats, turning to look over at Thomas. “He will.”  
  
“...Alright,” Thomas says, nodding. But not quite like he really agrees. More like he’s terribly afraid of disagreeing and breaking whatever tenuous grip on reality that Ethan still has. “Of course he will. But uh, why don’t you come back to mine? Until then? He’ll know to look there. You can hardly stay in a place with no furniture.”  
  
“I should really wait here for -”  
  
“Come on.”  
  
Thomas reaches down and pulls him up, hoisting him up off of the ground with ease.  
  
“Please? You’ll be doing me a favour. I don’t think I want to be alone at mine, right now. It was hard enough last night.”  
  
“...Alright,” Ethan agrees, faintly. His head is spinning and his blood feels cold in his veins. “But uh, let me leave Ripper a note, yeah? Tell him I’m at yours, so he doesn’t freak out when he gets back to an empty flat. Have you got any paper? Someone fucked off with all of mine.”  
  
Thomas hesitates… then nods, feeling into his jacket pockets and pulling out a pen and a crumpled up label that Ethan flips over and scribbles on the back of.  
  
_“Ripper,_  
  
_Gone to Tom’s. Waiting there for you. Meet me there._  
  
_\- E.”_  
  
Ethan stumbles to set it down on the counter, where Ripper should see it first thing, and then holds the pen back out to Tom, who pockets it and reaches out again, slowly, to wrap his arm around Ethan’s shoulders. He looks troubled when Ethan meets his gaze, haunted, and Ethan can almost still see the reflection of Randall’s body dropping to the ground in the depths of them.  
  
He shudders and looks away. He’s not ready to think about that, yet.  
  
“Come on.”  
  
They trudge out together, Ethan with his head bowed and his gaze on the ground and Thomas with his head held high and troubled eyes looking out into a world that’s just stopped making any sense.


	3. Chapter 3

_It’s the warehouse._  
  
_** ‘I shouldn’t be here,’** Ethan thinks, shivering in the cold. The door is just a few feet away… he could touch it, brush his fingers against it and scrape away a little more of the paint if he dragged his nails down. But he doesn’t want to. There’s something waiting for him there. Something dark and unfathomable. He tries to turn away, tries to start walking in the opposite direction, but he’s rooted to the spot._  
  
_ He takes a step forward against his will and reaches out. And the door slowly creaks open without him ever touching the knob. He really doesn’t want this. Fear tastes metallic on his tongue and finally, he can turn! He starts to turn away, tries to run from the door. But it’s too late. The door is behind him now and it swings shut, startling him into reeling back further into the warehouse. It’s too dark to see anything and he feels around, blindly, trying to remember where the couch is, trying to avoid tripping over anything._  
  
_ “Ethan?”_  
  
_ That voice._  
  
_ He knows that voice._  
  
_ He turns and there’s light. It’s dim and flickering. A mass of candles ignited in the shape of a square instead of the sacred circle. And in the center lies Randall, curled up in a ball and cowering away from something. The fire? The darkness? Ethan? He doesn’t know but he doesn’t care. Because there’s his boy and he starts to scramble for him, tries to wade through the darkness that’s as thick as pudding around his ankles, now, keeping him from the candles._  
  
_ “Ethan?” Randall says, again, but he never sees his mouth move._  
  
_** ‘I’m right here!’** Ethan tries to say, but he can’t force his mouth to open. Can only think the words as hard as he can.** ‘I’m here! Hold on. I’m coming!’**_  
  
_ But he’s not moving at all. Not getting any closer._  
  
_ “Where am I?” Randall asks, still writhing against the floor. Moving awkwardly like he can’t work out how to move his limbs. He looks like a spider that’s been sprayed with bug repellent. Writhing and slowly suffocating. “I can’t -- it hurts. Is this hell? Can you hear me?”_  
  
_** ‘Yes!’** Ethan tries to scream, but he can’t even move forward anymore. He has no body. He has no mouth. He’s part of the darkness now, unable to do anything but watch Randall struggle.** ‘I can hear you! I’m here! I’m sorry!’**_  
  
_ Randall sobs and the sound echoes against the four walls… and it met with the sound of footsteps. Someone else is in the darkness with them. Ethan has no body, no head, but he somehow wills himself to turn in the direction of whoever else is there. The footsteps get louder and closer… but Ethan can’t see anything or anyone else._  
  
_ Randall does. He stiffens against the ground, ceases his writhing, and looks ahead with horror etched in his expression. There’s only darkness where he stares, but Ethan can FEEL something standing there. Can almost make out a shape in the way that the candles start to flicker when the darkness moves in front of them. It - whatever it is - is getting closer to Randall. Looking down at him, where he’s lying on the floor._  
  
_ “Time to wake up.”_  
  
***  
  
Ethan sits up with a gasping cry, clutching twin fistfuls of blanket. His skin crawls, pins and needles on every inch of him and it takes the voices from the other side of the door to anchor him back to reality. Thomas’ sheets are tangled around him and he struggles to pull himself free of the hold that his fitful tossing and turning had gotten him into.  
  
The sparse light of a street lamp makes the air a hazy yellow, steals some of the weight of reality. But anything is better than the oppressive darkness that he’d just been in. Anything is better than the taste of fear on his tongue. Now, his mouth tastes gritty and his face feels slick with sweat and tears. He scrubs at his cheeks with both hands and forces himself to crawl out of Thomas’ bed, stumbling under the weight of vertigo.  
  
It was a dream.  
  
Just a dream.  
  
But an extension of a real-life nightmare and Ethan shudders as he drops his hands from his face and makes his way to the door, pausing now that he can hear Deirdre and Thomas’ voices a little clearer.  
  
“...think he’s really going to come back,” He catches Dee saying, her voice quiet and hoarse like she’s been crying, too. “Phil went, nearly without saying goodbye. I think the only reason he bothered to phone me is because he was scared I’d track him down. He doesn’t want to see any of us again, wouldn’t even give me the address or a way for me to reach him.”  
  
“I don’t know, Dee.” Came Thomas’ voice. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t even know how much of this is real. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and it’ll be yesterday, and all of this will have been one big, bad dream.”  
  
“I know what you mean…”  
  
“But, listen. Ethan looks like he’s a hair’s width away from cracking, completely. Keep your theories about Ripper to yourself for a while, yeah? At least while he’s around and at least for a few days. Maybe he’s right… maybe Ripper’ll come back and he’s just being held hostage by his dad for a bit. Or, maybe we’ll never see him again. Either way, there’s no point in working him up over it now. We just need to -”  
  
Ethan took several steps back away from the door and coughed, as loudly as he could, stomping his feet in place so that they’d hear him, moving about, and stop talking. It worked like a charm, ending that dreadful conversation, and it’s only then that Ethan pushes open the door while rubbing at his eyes, trying his best to pretend that he hadn’t heard them.  
  
“Ethan!” Thomas says, a little too loudly. He looks just as gaunt and drawn as he had before, but Dee’s face is puffy and her eyes are tinged red like she’s been crying recently. He must look just as bad, or worse because the forced expression of companionship on Thomas’ face gives away to concern in an instant. “Are you okay? How’d you sleep?”  
  
Those are both dumb fucking questions. But Thomas winces in acknowledgment before Ethan can snap at him and so he only stares down at the floor.  
  
“Had a nightmare,” He says, truthfully, because he’s not sure what the point in lying is. “I’m guessing Ripper hasn’t been by?”  
  
“Not yet.”  
  
It’s Dee who answers this time.  
  
“But it’s only been a few hours. We both thought you’d be asleep longer.”  
  
“Nightmare,” Ethan says again because he feels a bit like that was an accusation. He stumbles the rest of the way out of Thomas' bedroom, trying to outrun the feeling of dread that dream left in his stomach. “Have you got anything to eat in this place?”  
  
“Might be something edible in the fridge.”  
  
Thomas jumps up, obviously thrilled for the task of finding something to do, some way to fill the hours and gloss over the tension that Ethan brought with him from the bedroom and Ethan grumpily settled down onto the couch next to Dee, in Thomas’ forfeited place, still rubbing at his eyes.  
  
It was a dream.  
  
Just a dream.  
  
But it had felt so real… so dark and so cold. His heart is hammering into overtime, pounding against his chest like a hammer on a nail.  
  
“Hey, E,” Dee says, quietly.  
  
“Deirdre,” Ethan says, just as quietly. He’d been surprised when he and Thomas made it back to find that she was still there, fluttering about with no idea what to do or where to go. “If you want it to be your turn to take a nap, the bed is free.”  
  
Dee just shakes her head. “I don’t think I could sleep right now.”  
  
She looks as haunted as he feels… and he wonders, just for a second, what’s wrong with him that he could sleep. That he feels like he could curl up into the corner and fall asleep again. Silence falls between them, tense and awkward.  
  
Two days ago, they would be laughing together. He’d say something cheeky that she’d roll her eyes at and either laugh or hit him over it, and he’d pretend to be offended when she called him a name. But he has nothing to say now. Nothing to share but the sharp image of Randall, alone, writhing on a cold stone floor and begging Ethan to hear him.  
  
Ethan shudders and draws further into himself. Thomas, thankfully, chooses then to reappear with a plate of lunch meat and some cheeses.  
  
“Here, this is what I’ve got.”  
  
He hands the plate to Ethan, who thinks he’d rather die than choke anything down right now, so he just holds the plate for something to do.  
  
“...Are we going to talk about it?” Deidre asks when Ethan says nothing and Thomas says nothing. When Ethan just sits there with a plate of food in his hand and Thomas just stands there and stares at both of them. “What happened last night… it was a lot. And maybe if we start to -”  
  
“What is there to talk about?” Ethan interrupts, his voice hoarse and angry. “We watched Randall die. You really want to rehash that?”  
  
The words hang in the air, suspended by tension, and it’s all Ethan can do not to throw the plate across the room and send the food flying; maybe shatter the dish. It probably wouldn’t make him feel better.  
  
“No,” Dee says, quietly.  
  
“Well, then shut up.”  
  
“Ethan!”  
  
Ethan doesn’t even look at Thomas when he protests. He just sets the plate down in his lap and starts to shred a thin slice of lunch meat. Tearing it into strips and then tearing those strips into little, less-than-bite-sized pieces that he drops down on top of the rest of the pile of food.  
  
“...Ripper’ll sort this out,” He says when the silence becomes unbearable. “When he gets here. He’ll know what to do.”  
  
‘He’ll make things okay again,’ Ethan wants to say, but they’re a lie even in his head. He doesn’t know that Ripper could fix this. Just wants to believe there’s something left that’s worth hoping for, because right now he feels like his life had ended last night, too, and now he’s nothing but a bundle of raw nerves and creeping dread.  
  
“Of course he will,” Thomas agrees, but he doesn’t meet Ethan’s gaze. “But we don’t know how long he’s going to take.”  
  
“Won’t be too long.”  
  
Ethan starts to tear up another slight of meat. It’s a strange but soothing ritual. Better than just sitting there and staring at the ugly carpeting in this flat.  
  
“He’s on his way here now, I expect.”  
  
“But if he’s not, we -”  
  
“If you want to fuck off, Dee, no one’s going to stop you.” Ethan interrupts, without looking away from the meat-based confetti he’s creating. “You’re hardly a vital fucking member. I wouldn’t miss you. Would you, Thomas? The only person who cared about you being around was Philip and he didn’t even have the balls to tell you to your face that he was leaving. Shame, really, considering how often you put out for him.”  
  
There’s no sting to his words. No triumph in being cruel, no inner-peace for putting her down. There’s no trade or pleasure in sharing the agony that he’s in; he’s robotic and meticulous in his put-downs for her. But Dee still recoils like he’d just shouted at her and jumps up and off the couch like she’s been burned.  
  
“Fuck you.” Dee spits at him, her chest heaving as she starts to back away from him, slowly. “Fuck you, Ethan. Do you hear me? FUCK YOU. You think you’re the only one in pain? That you’re the only one who is destroyed by this? I cared about Randall too. I loved Ripper too. I lost them too. WE lost them, too.”  
  
She gestures at herself and then at Thomas, eyes blazing.  
  
“Don’t you think that we’re in pain, too?”  
  
“You’re awfully keen to move on for someone that’s in pain,” Ethan says, just as quietly. Just as terribly, without an ounce of inflection. Cruelty for the sake of it, because he has nothing else to offer. “Ready to make plans; quick to assume that Ripper isn’t coming back. Is it so unfathomable that he’d be back? Do you really think he’d run away? Or are you just so aware that he didn’t give a fuck about you that you can’t imagine him caring about anyone else?”  
  
“I didn’t say that! I just said that we should talk about it!”  
  
“Ethan, stop it.”  
  
Thomas sounds horrified. Ethan doesn’t look up but he can imagine the look on his face. The surprise and anger, mixing together.  
  
“Maybe Ripper is on his way, but until then? We’re all you’ve got and turning on us isn’t going to make you feel better.”  
  
He’s right. Oh, he’s right. Ethan knows damn well that there’s nothing he can do or say that’ll take the cold dread out of his gut. Knows that it’s not their fault. But he blames them anyway. Blames them for running, blames them for thinking that Ripper won’t come back. Blames them for sitting together, quietly, already ready to talk about it when he’s not even ready to THINK.  
  
He starts to tear up a third slice of lunch meat. Dee slowly sits back down.  
  
“...Was there anything we could have done?” She asks. She doesn’t sound angry anymore. Just sad. A candle that’s snuffed its own flame.  
  
“...Yeah,” Ethan says, dropping a bit of meat onto the pile. “We could have never started this thing in the first place.”  
  
No one says anything else for a long time.


	4. Chapter 4

“Dee’s gone.”  
  
Ethan stirs to the sound of Thomas’ voice, followed by the clink of a mug being set down on the coffee table… and then jerks upright on the couch, hands rubbing furiously at his eyes because he didn’t remember falling asleep. Just curling back and staring at the ceiling, trying to picture Randall as anything other than the terrified boy from his nightmare -- trying to remember what he looked like when he was happy and growing more and more concerned about how long it feels like it’s been since the last time he saw his smile and why he can’t replace the image of terror and death with a memory of joy. And it takes him a few seconds to register what Thomas said to him.  
  
He lowers his hands from his face, slowly. “What?”  
  
“Dee’s gone.” Thomas says, again. He sits back into the armchair, a cup of tea in his own hands. But he doesn’t try to drink from it, just stares down into the mug. “Left a note on the table.”  
  
Ethan sees the scrap of paper but doesn’t bother trying to read the looping handwriting from his position on the couch. Just stretches and feels his spine pop and crack back into place.  
  
“I guess she took off while we were asleep. Decided to take your advice.”  
  
Ethan stiffens at the note of accusation in Thomas’ tone. “It wasn’t advice. It was a suggestion. And, if I recall, she made a rather passionate speech about how much she loved and cared about Ripper and Randall and how much pain she was in over it all. I guess she got over it.”  
  
“She was really cut up about Philip. You of all people should have understood. I mean -”  
  
“What? You mean what, Tom? Was I not compassionate enough? Did I not tend to her poor, aching heart with enough consideration? I’m so sorry.” Every word from Ethan’s mouth drips with disdain, his upper lip curling back over his teeth. “I guess something about watching Randall die and then realizing that Ripper is missing made me a little less friendly than I usually am. You’re right, I should have been tripping over myself to tell her how sorry I was that her boyfriend willingly ran away like a fucking COWARD without even thinking about looking back.”  
  
“...You lost someone too. I just thought maybe you could have related to what she was feeling.”  
  
“Well, you’re wrong. And stupid. Congratulations.”  
  
Ethan picks up the tea that Thomas set out for him and takes a sip… swallowing painfully when he realizes that it’s still hot and scalds his tongue, but refusing to look weak, even for long enough to wince at the heat.  
  
It’s quiet for a long few minutes. Thomas doesn’t even flinch when Ethan insults him, just stares evenly at him in that quiet, unnerving way that he does. He always had that air about him, that quiet acknowledgment that you were trying to hurt his feelings, but maybe something about being so tall made him inherently above it. And it’s never been so annoying as it is now when all Ethan has left is the need to give his pain to someone else.  
  
It’s never been as creepy, either.  
  
Ethan sets his cup back down on the table and starts to stand, because sitting there and feeling Thomas staring at him with that mixture of heartache and sympathy is unnerving.  
  
“I…”  
  
What he wants, he’s not sure. He has to take a morning piss, but he’s too afraid of somehow missing Ripper by going into the other room, even for a second. He wants to change out of these clothes because they’re covered in the dirt from the warehouse and still scorched from Randall knocking over the candles and starting that fire. He wants to bawl like a child because… because it’s still coming. The grief. It’s not even hit him yet, not really. He can feel it surrounding him, ready to knock him down so hard that he won’t know how to get back up.  
  
“You know where the bathroom is.” Thomas says, quietly, staring back down at his cup.  
  
That’s that decision made then, isn’t? Ethan nods his head in unspoken appreciation and slips from the living room and through the kitchen to the hall that led to the bathroom.  
  
***  
  
Ethan uses the bathroom and entertains the idea of taking a shower for all of three seconds before deciding that he doesn’t really have the patience for it. So he twists on the faucet and wets his hands and face before picking up the cheap bar of soap that Thomas has sitting there next to the sink and uses it to scrub valiantly at his exposed skin, getting rid of the grime and stale sweat that clings to him.  
  
He rinses off and doesn’t feel better, not even as he pats himself dry with a surprisingly fluffy hand towel.  
  
Maybe better is too extreme a goal. Maybe “okay” is even pushing it, a bit. He sets his sights on just… trying not to die. That’s the only feeling that seems manageable and even that is only just.  
  
He presses the hand towel harder to his face. Tries to take comfort in the artificial darkness. But, unbidden, the image of Randall’s body lying limply on the floor of the warehouse comes to mind. He bites his tongue to keep from wailing.  
  
And he slowly hangs the towel back up, avoiding his gaze in the mirror all the while.  
  
“Ethan?”  
  
Thomas tapping his knuckles against the door makes him jump a foot in the air and he whirls around, his hand pressed to his chest where his heart is thudding unevenly.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Please tell him that Ripper is out there. Please tell him that Ripper is out here. Please tell him that Ripper is -  
  
“I’m going to head out. There’s fuck all to eat in my house… you want anything in particular?”  
  
Ethan tries not to be disappointed. He really does, because he knew it was a long shot. That it was ridiculous to hope. That if it HAD been that Ripper was here, he would have burst his way into the bathroom without knocking like a prick. And then, if that wasn’t enough of a letdown, the words that come out of his mouth next give away too much of his anxiety.  
  
“Are you going to come back?”  
  
Thomas opens the door just a crack. Just enough to peek in on him.  
  
“Yeah. You want anything in particular?”  
  
There’s an underlying note of genuine warmth in Thomas’ tone. That and sympathy and Ethan doesn’t like the sound of either thing. But he can’t deny the little bit of relief that he feels.  
  
“Bread, milk, and eggs. Staples of survival.”  
  
“Got it.”  
  
Thomas offers him one more, reassuring look… and then ducks back out of the bathroom and closes the door behind him.  
  
Maybe Ripper’ll come back while Thomas is out.  
  
No, not maybe. Of course, he will. Because he has to.  
  
Ethan wets his face in the sink again, pats it dry without covering his eyes, and then goes back to sulk in Thomas’ living room, listening for the sound of footsteps hurrying up the stairs. Waits for Ripper to burst through, eyes wide and gaze wild, an apology on his mouth. Waits and counts down every second because things won’t be okay until he’s here. Things won’t be survivable until he knows where he is and where he was and what happened to Randall's body.  
  
He sits and sits and hopes.  
  
_((And hope doesn’t start to falter until Thomas gets back, arms laden with groceries and no sign of Ripper.))_


End file.
